Rumor: iTunes movies, Apple TV going 1080p this fall

Apple is rumored to be prepping 1080p support for the Apple TV this fall, to …

A 1080p-capable Apple TV and 1080p iTunes movies are expected to make their debut this September or October, according to unnamed sources speaking to AppleInsider. A "handful of films" from the major movie studios are reportedly being submitted to the iTunes Store with a resolution of 1920x1080 and an "average bitrate encoding of 10,000Kbps."

The HD films on iTunes currently max out at 720p, which is also the maximum resolution that the second-generation Apple TV currently supports. Though 720p has apparently proven an acceptable resolution for most iTunes buyers thus far, movie aficionados have long nitpicked Apple for not going all the way with 1080p movies on iTunes and with corresponding support on the Apple TV.

AppleInsider's sources claim that Apple is planning to bump the Apple TV's CPU to the A5 chip currently residing in the iPad 2. And, following the discovery last month that the iOS 5 beta would sync 1080p content to the iPad 2, we'd hardly be surprised to see an Apple TV spec bump and 1080p movies coming to iTunes when Apple has its annual media event in the fall. Apple is also expected to introduce an updated iPhone during that event.

The sources didn't say anything about pricing of either the updated Apple TV or higher-resolution movies. However, they do claim that Apple is planning to offer movies in three tiers, with 480p being "SD," 720p being "HD," and 1080p being "HD+," indicating to us that the company plans to charge even more for the 1080p movies than it already does for its HD offerings.

There's my signal to sell off my parents' ATV2 now and buy them a Roku instead, before it depreciates further.I gave it to them for Christmas and already over the last couple of months it's seemed to hit problems that only resolve if they reboot it. And they're too scared to do that when I'm not there. And they only watch Netflix on it, nothing from Apple, so...

Its a good idea, but (perhaps) a little ahead of its time. 10,000 kbs is considerably faster than the average downstream service of most US residential broadband - meaning that the decision to buy or rent HD+ content will mean a wait of at least an hour before the movie starts playing. Current iTunes rentals usually start playing within five to ten minutes.

US consumers might like the idea of HD+ content. But they like instant gratification even more. So I think acceptance of this might be more niche than mainstream.

Its a good idea, but (perhaps) a little ahead of its time. 10,000 kbs is considerably faster than the average downstream service of most US residential broadband - meaning that the decision to buy or rent HD+ content will mean a wait of at least an hour before the movie starts playing. Current iTunes rentals usually start playing within five to ten minutes.

US consumers might like the idea of HD+ content. But they like instant gratification even more. So I think acceptance of this might be more niche than mainstream.

Or we could use this as a sign to explain that 10 mb connections are pathetically slow, and that the ISPs need to get on it before Google does.

No point... ISP's will just lower their bandwidth cap even more to protect their TV offerings. Comcast out here offers a 100 mbit line. Still with like a 250GB cap. So, you hit your cap in 5.8 hours???? That just stinks.

the constant barrage of apple drivel on ars is getting incredibly tiresome.

You suck

I used to like coming to Ars for the comments sections that actually added to the quality of the content. But I agree with Liono, now the commenters like Doug make it just like every other website where the comments detract from the quality. Kind of sad really.

Can't wait to get one of these and stick XBMC on it... The problem with ATV2 is that the hardware is barely capable of playing 1080p, even with XBMC's very efficient decoders.

Did you notice that part where Apple is going to upgrade to the A5, which will have no problem with 1080p? Geez.

spicyjeff wrote:

Doug Dolde wrote:

liono wrote:

the constant barrage of apple drivel on ars is getting incredibly tiresome.

You suck

I used to like coming to Ars for the comments sections that actually added to the quality of the content. But I agree with Liono, now the commenters like Doug make it just like every other website where the comments detract from the quality. Kind of sad really.

I did too. But you are not agreeing with Liono anymore than Doug. They both detract from the quality of comments, though I imagine Doug is upset with Liono like most people- those stupid inane comments are a waste of everybody's time. If you don't like Apple, don't read.

Its funny, 10 years ago, this sort of comment was popular. Then it died down. But now its back again. I really wish the mods would reprimand those people for those comments.

--

Back on topic- this is great. I have a 720p TV in my room, and my roommates have a 1080p TV in the living room. I was considering getting another Apple TV, but the 720p only made me wary. Now, I'll definitely get this. Of course, I'll have to upgrade my server's HD to start ripping Blu-rays, but that's okay!

1080p is just the number of pixels in a decoded stream, hardly a measure of the quality you can expect. You could have a 2 Mbps 1080p and compression artifacts would make it looks worse than 720p. You could have a 35 Mbps 1080p stream look worse than a 20 Mbps 720p stream because of misguided filtering on the source material for the former. (That doesn't mean bit-rate can't be a limiting factor.)

Ultimately, decoded pixels can only be as good as the data that feeds them.

Mastering factors aside, I wonder if at 10 Mbps, it would not be better to have a nice transparent 720p stream rather than spreading the bits thin over full 1080p.

1080p is just the number of pixels in a decoded stream, hardly a measure of the quality you can expect. You could have a 2 Mbps 1080p and compression artifacts would make it looks worse than 720p. You could have a 35 Mbps 1080p stream look worse than a 20 Mbps 720p stream because of misguided filtering on the source material for the former. (That doesn't mean bit-rate can't be a limiting factor.)

Thank you! The way people talk about 1080p you’d think it was magic. Dollars to donuts 90% of the people clamoring for 1080 don’t have their televisions properly calibrated, set at eye level or at the proper viewing distance. Probably complain when they can see film grain too. 1080p strikes me as a marketing term uninformed people throw around to sound impressive or knowledgable.

1080p is just the number of pixels in a decoded stream, hardly a measure of the quality you can expect. You could have a 2 Mbps 1080p and compression artifacts would make it looks worse than 720p. You could have a 35 Mbps 1080p stream look worse than a 20 Mbps 720p stream because of misguided filtering on the source material for the former. (That doesn't mean bit-rate can't be a limiting factor.)

Thank you! The way people talk about 1080p you’d think it was magic. Dollars to donuts 90% of the people clamoring for 1080 don’t have their televisions properly calibrated, set at eye level or at the proper viewing distance. Probably complain when they can see film grain too. 1080p strikes me as a marketing term uninformed people throw around to sound impressive or knowledgable.

No way any download or streaming service is ready to go with bandwidth that high yet. Netflix, at less than half that bitrate, is already hated by ISPs.

Vudu streams their HDX videos at 9 Mbps with peak bandwidth of 20 Mbps for fast action scenes with a lot going on in the video. I'm not sure how many people use their service, but I'm sure the numbers have grown considerably once they made their software available on the PS3.

Its a good idea, but (perhaps) a little ahead of its time. 10,000 kbs is considerably faster than the average downstream service of most US residential broadband - meaning that the decision to buy or rent HD+ content will mean a wait of at least an hour before the movie starts playing. Current iTunes rentals usually start playing within five to ten minutes.

US consumers might like the idea of HD+ content. But they like instant gratification even more. So I think acceptance of this might be more niche than mainstream.

I really don't think the "average" US residence is Apple's demographic. The main customer base for this service is likely living in nicer urban and suburban neighborhoods with decent broadband speeds (20 Mbps Comcast or Verizon FIOS service, for example). Those people out in the sticks with 1.5 Mbps DSL really aren't the people that Apple is targeting, so it really doesn't matter what the average is.

Since I've had no trouble streaming Vudu HDX titles on my PS3 with a 20 Mbps connection and having the video only buffer for a short time before playing, I'd say that this service would work similarly well so long as the iTunes servers are as beefy as the ones Vudu uses.

1080P...just hitting the Apple TV now?? Sorry Apple, you are 2 years to late to the 1080P game, I already got the Dune Base 3 because it offered 1080P..

So...they shouldn't even offer it then?

There's no pleasing anyone...I can see that now. A company get's chastised for not having something, then when they put that something in, they get chastised for putting it in and get complaints about "such-and-such had that first, they're just playing catch-up now".

Why not take it to extremes. When AppleTV came out, they should have said "such-and-such device had HDMI first...Apple is just putting that in now?" "Such-and-such device streamed media before AppleTV". "Such-and-such played Youtube before this". HOW IS THIS AN ARGUMENT?

I didn't buy a new laptop because Compaq had an LCD screen before the ones being sold today had them. Sorry HP, I bought a Compaq 15 years ago that had an LCD.

If Apple put a Blu-ray drive in the Apple TV, they could get 1080p at a maximum of "40,000Kbps" and the amazing thing is - it doesn't even matter what kind of internet pipe it's hooked up to and would even work disconnected. Magic!

If Apple put a Blu-ray drive in the Apple TV, they could get 1080p at a maximum of "40,000Kbps" and the amazing thing is - it doesn't even matter what kind of internet pipe it's hooked up to and would even work disconnected. Magic!

Or, you know, you could go out and just get a Blu-ray player and be done with it. Why does ATV have to have a Blu-ray drive in it? Has to be "all or nothing"?

The sources didn't say anything about pricing of either the updated Apple TV or higher-resolution movies. However, they do claim that Apple is planning to offer movies in three tiers, with 480p being "SD," 720p being "HD," and 1080p being "HD+," indicating to us that the company plans to charge even more for the 1080p movies than it already does for its HD offerings."

So the rest of the world is trying to tell us 1080p is the real HD and Apple is trying to tell us that 1080p is HD+ ????? who's lying here??

which might be a decent complaint if upping the resolution was all they did. But they also increased the data rate to 10mb/s which means that they have pretty much the maximum bitrate of a DVD and significantly more than the normal DVD bitrate. Add modern compression algorithms which are pretty amazing and its enough for very good 1080p content. Or otherwise put, if you have a 1080p display with a viewing angle where 1080p actually makes sense you will be better off in most movies with 10mb 1080p than 10mb 720p. Which is all that matters.

Hell I just googled it and half of all blueray movies have bitrates around 15-18 mbit. Although the really good ones are in the 25-35mb ratio.

The sources didn't say anything about pricing of either the updated Apple TV or higher-resolution movies. However, they do claim that Apple is planning to offer movies in three tiers, with 480p being "SD," 720p being "HD," and 1080p being "HD+," indicating to us that the company plans to charge even more for the 1080p movies than it already does for its HD offerings."

So the rest of the world is trying to tell us 1080p is the real HD and Apple is trying to tell us that 1080p is HD+ ????? who's lying here??

No one is "lying"

HD has long been defined as either 720p/1080i OR 1080p. Since apple already calls 720p HD, customers would rightfully upset if apple didn't distinguish between 720p HD and 1080p HD. What else can they do but add plus, or some other adjective to show the difference in the content?

the constant barrage of apple drivel on ars is getting incredibly tiresome.

Amusing. Are you one of those idiots who thinks a product sucks simply because they didn't personally buy it? Maybe you didn't notice but this is a technology site. Apple makes technology. Whether you like them or not is beside the point, they have some good stuff, some bad stuff, and their stuff is worth reporting. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean Ars shouldn't write about them. Learn to differentiate between your personal view and what is objectively true.

So the rest of the world is trying to tell us 1080p is the real HD and Apple is trying to tell us that 1080p is HD+ ????? who's lying here??

Nobody is "lying" get over it. There is no UN resolution about what constitutes "high" definition. If you do not like the HD thing nobody hinders you from looking at the line numbers 720p and 1080p.Although 10mb 720p can of course look better than 1mb 1080p so thats not as easy as well. Now bitrate alone doesn't help you either because 30mb 1080p will look better than 40mb 720p. Unless you sit far away from the screen and it doesn't matter again.

The apple Tv boxes are a joke ive had two since they came out for mine and my daughters bedrooms and the library sharing is great because my daughter can watch all of her movies from her itunes library on her desktop and display her itouch screen...so she loves it..But for me when i try to use netflix or mlb live its always having issues and is so inconsistent I dont even attempt to try and see if its working. So apple congrats on going 1080 but you have some other issues that should be addressed first

We're getting close to when Apple TV goes from being a "hobby" to being real. The big step will be when the iCloud service lets you buy movies, TV episodes, and songs and then stream them. People will use their iPad to browse the iTunes store and their collections, and play to their home stereo and TV via the Apple TV.